Former Republican Representative Liz Cheney is going after Donald Trump in a new ad, which is scheduled to air in New Hampshire ahead of CNN’s town hall with Trump on Wednesday. The pointed minute-long commercial calls out Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and claims that “there has never been a greater dereliction of duty by any president.”
“Donald Trump has proven he is unfit for office. Donald Trump is a risk America can never take again,” Cheney says in the final seconds of the commercial.
The ad switches between clips of Trump and the Jan. 6 riots as Cheney provides a voiceover. “Donald Trump is the only president in American history who has refused to guarantee the peaceful transfer of power. He betrayed millions of Americans by telling them the election was stolen. He ignored the rulings of dozens of courts,” Cheney says.
Cheney then summarizes Trump’s role in the insurrection in painstaking detail. “Rather than accept his defeat, he mobilized a mob to come to Washington and march on the Capitol. Then he watched on television while the mob attacked law enforcement, invaded the Capitol and hunted the vice president. He refused for three hours to tell the mob to leave,” Cheney says.
It also states that Trump was “warned repeatedly” that his Jan. 6 plans were illegal but Trump “didn’t care.” Cheney, who never appears in the ad, also says Trump “celebrates” those who attacked the Capitol.
Titled “Risk,” the ad was paid for by Great Task, Cheney’s leadership PAC. According to NBC News, it’s expected to run in New Hampshire — the first GOP primary state — during Trump’s CNN town hall. The broadcast event will be CNN’s first town hall of the 2024 election cycle and will be moderated by former chief White House correspondent and current host of “CNN This Morning” Kaitlan Collins. The event will take place at St. Anselm College and will air at 8 p.m. ET.
Cheney has yet to officially announce whether or not she plans on running for president during the 2024 election. But regardless, if this is an election play, the Jan. 6 attacks are a subject the former Wyoming representative knows well.
In July of 2021, Nancy Pelosi appointed Cheney to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, and she eventually became vice chair of the committee. Due to serving on the committee, Cheney’s membership in the Wyoming Republican Party was revoked. She also supported the second impeachment of Trump for his role in the 2021 storming of the Capitol. Cheney later lost her reelection campaign to the Trump-backed Harriet Hageman and left office in January of this year.
